Commercial food operations, including those in health care facilities, have long implemented on site food service automation systems to help run the operations. One such commercially available automation system is the Hospitality Suite® software package from Computrition, Inc., Chatsworth, Calif. Typically) existing food service automation systems automate the existing functionality of the sole facility or organization in which they are placed. As such, there is a high degree of customization involved and the food service automation system is site or organization specific.
For a commercial food operation in any facility, the installation of a food service automation system is disruptive, both operationally and economically. For traditional automation solutions, the average implementation time is about nine months to one year, with larger facilities easily taking eighteen months or more. A factor in the length of time needed for implementation, particularly in a health care facility, is the need to build food, diet type, nutrition and menu databases specific to the site (or organization) so that specific dietary requirements and restrictions as prescribed by the physician community may be met while providing patients with substantial variety and flexibility in their meals. The cost of these systems, typically $60,000 to $500,000, has created a market that is only suited for medium to large facilities. Because of the combination of the entry costs, both economic and operational, commercial food service automation systems typically focus on medium to large facilities, which are more likely to have the resources to absorb these costs.
There are, however, approximately 4,330 hospitals under 200 beds in the United States. This represents seventy-one percent of all acute care facilities in the nation. In addition, there are approximately 16,700 long term care facilities in the United States of which approximately 15,400 are under 200 beds. Many times these small facilities are located in rural areas and do not have either the professional or financial resources of the larger facilities. Small facilities having commercial food operation outside of the health care field also face similar resource constraints.
Even though smaller facilities could gain the most from automation, they face the greatest barriers to the automation of their commercial food operations. A need has thus been recognized in conjunction with facilitating the automation of commercial food operations of smaller facilities, and in particular, smaller health care facilities.